Superior linear and comparable rotational protection of an air-filled helmet versus foam helmets

Air-filled chambers offer a promising approach for designing lightweight and portable bicycle helmets, yet their effectiveness in real-world cycling accidents, particularly under oblique impacts, remains unexplored. Here, for the first time, we evaluated the brain injury mitigation performance of a commercially available air-filled helmet, Ventete aH-1, under oblique impacts, and compared it with three conventional cycle helmets, ranking high, middle and low in a recent study of 30 cycle helmets. Helmets were fitted to a new headform with more biofidelic physical properties than other existing headforms, allowing for more accurate measurements of linear and rotational motion during impacts. The helmeted headform was subjected to impacts to the front, front-side, side and rear against a 45° anvil at 6.5 m/s. The risk of linear and rotational injuries was calculated using risk functions based on PLA (peak linear acceleration) and BrIC (brain injury criterion) and exposure weighting. The PLA and linear risk were lower for the air-filled helmet than the EPS helmets in all impact locations. The air-filled helmet showed a 44% reduction in overall linear brain injury risk compared to the best-performing EPS helmet, attributed to its nearly twice as long impact duration. The air-filled helmet’s rotational performance compared to the EPS helmets was dependent on the impact location, with its overall rotational risk being slightly better than the EPS helmet ranked middle. Our study shows that air-filled chambers have the potential to provide superior protection compared with EPS liner helmets under oblique impacts. We hope our results will inspire new helmet designs which adopt air-filled chambers to improve brain injury protection and address portability concerns that limit helmet adoption.